The British International Freight Association welcomes the news of the launch by the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) of a public consultation on the latter's proposed recommendation to UK government regarding the retained Liner Shipping Consortia Block Exemption Regulation.
However, BIFA Director General, Steve Parker, says that whilst the trade association will be encouraging its members that are operational in the deep-sea container market to read the proposal document, and share their responses; it hopes that trade has not been presented with a fait accompli.
Parker says:
“BIFA was somewhat surprised that as part of the announcement, the CMA issued a provisional position which in effect only gives one position - the extension of a potentially modified CBER into UK legislation.”
The purpose of the consultation is to seek views on whether the UK government should keep a similar block exemption regime for the liner shipping industry, as the retained CBER originating from EU law will expire on 24th April 2024.
In the recent past, the UK’s main trade association for freight forwarding and logistics companies has said that its members are extremely concerned that practices undertaken by container shipping lines, as well as easements and exemptions provided to them under competition law, have been distorting the operations of the free market to the detriment of international trade.
Parker adds:
“BIFA, and its members, are not anti-shipping line. The association wants to ensure that there is a suitable balance between them as carriers, and our members as customers, points made during meetings with the CMA in 2022.
“The facts speak for themselves. During a period that has seen EU block exemption regulations carried forward into UK law, there has been huge market consolidation.
“The pandemic highlighted and accelerated this development, and contributed to dreadful service levels and hugely inflated rates, with carriers allocating vessels to the most profitable routes with little regard to the needs of their customers.
“The market conditions have changed significantly since last year when we were pressing for this review, however, the potential for issues resulting from the carrier’s vertical integration of their operations remain.”
BIFA is pleased to see the CMA consultation taking place, as it will give all parties the opportunity to make comments, good or bad, about the current state of the container shipping industry.
Separately, BIFA has announced that it is cooperating with Pledge, an integrated carbon measurement and offsetting platform, to help its members better understand and address the environmental issues that affect how they manage international supply chains.
Steve Parker, BIFA’s Director general says: “The need to understand and address the environmental impact of freight forwarders’ activities within global supply chains grows by the day.
“Our members are facing increasing pressure from regulators, business partners, and consumers amongst others, in favour of business initiatives and good practice that are considered to be environmentally friendly.
“At a business level, our members are increasingly seeing tenders that demand actual evidence of what they are doing to reduce harmful emissions and undertake their operations in a more environmentally friendly and sustainable manner.
“There is a clear direction of travel on this subject and we want to help BIFA members, small and large, who may need some support on where to start when it comes to taking effective action to understand and reduce their carbon footprint. They are already seeking guidance from their trade association and this is where our partnership with Pledge will help.”
The cooperation with Pledge will see the latter provide BIFA with some of the resources that will help to support members in their journey to having operations that are more environmentally sustainable.
Those resources will be designed to guide members on what to do to address the tasks at hand, rather than how to do it. They will address what needs to be considered as the main environmental issues, and the challenges they pose; whilst providing guidance on the steps that they should take to launch an environmental policy, or enhance an existing one.
David de Picciotto, Pledge Co-founder and CEO said: “the pressure on logistics service providers is not going away, but will only continue to grow. They need to take action now, and it all starts with getting thorough visibility of their carbon footprint. We’re excited to be able to support BIFA members to accelerate the decarbonisation of their customers’ supply chains.”
Parker concludes: “We have seen a gradual shift over several years and the reality is that carbon reduction and the more widely related environmental sustainability agenda are now no longer seen as a ‘nice to have’ or ‘tree hugging’ initiatives, but increasingly mainstream business activities, taking centre stage on the business agenda.
“While some members are already deploying sustainability technologies and strategies to reduce freight emissions, these practices are not yet widely adopted. For the most part this has been seen in larger organisations as part of most tenders and business activities, but the process is filtering down into smaller businesses and it is BIFA’s responsibility to be able to assist all our members, whatever their size, to meet this challenge to their long term viability.
“Our cooperation with Pledge presents a huge opportunity for the trade association to deliver advice and help empower our members on how they can better understand and calculate their carbon footprint and the actions that they need to take in order to reduce it.
“It’s more important than ever for companies to make climate-conscious supply chain decisions that will enable them to grow sustainability and satisfy stakeholder demands around emissions.
“Cooperating with Pledge means we can support our members as they seek to achieve more and more ambitious climate action goals.”
